WinSpark Network » Microsoft News

LifeChat headsets for Microsoft Lync system

Rahul — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 18:21:58 +0000

Microsoft announced 2 new business range headsets with the facility of Lync system integration. It has been optimized for better communication through Lync server and provides better noise reduction and stereo surround business class experience. LifeChat LX-4000 facilitates single earpeaice to handle the both, the outer surrounding sound and the system. whereas both the headphone contains Noise Canceling Microphone which provides more clear output cutting through every noise surroundings. This environment friendly headphones comes with 2 years warranty with limited cost, so no chance of big hole in pocket. Price : LifeChat LX-4000 – $59.95 LifeChat LX-6000 – $69.95

Windows Thin PC has been RTM

Rahul — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 17:15:50 +0000

Microsoft has sucessfully completed the CTP phase of Windows This PC by today and finally its released to manufacturing. It will be available to consumers to download starting July 1, 2011. However, the RC build of Windows Thin PC will still be available to download at the CTP site, along with associated documentation until the product launches to customers. Before going further about Windows Thin PC, Lets discuss about some characteristics of thin clients and why its differ from normal clients. These clients only supports user interface for the application. All the processing logic and data maintenance is performed on the server side. They are simple, cheap and facilitate centralised control and administration. Servers are heavily loaded as all the processing logic and the data reside on the server machine. The system is less reliable and fault-tolerant as all the processing is on the server side and the control is centralised, thus the failure of the server results in system failure.

What is Windows Thin PC ?

Same as the thin client, Windows thin PC is the operating system same as Windows 7 but with lesser functionality. Microsoft Windows Thin PC (WinTPC) enables customers to repurpose existing PCs as thin clients by providing a smaller footprint, locked down version of Windows 7. This provides numerious features like cost reduction, better and powerfull centralised experience and effective control over remote desktop experience. in addition, Windows Thin PC offers :

Keyboard Filter
Input Method Editor support
Key Management Server & Multiple Activation Key activation
Rich VDI experience through support for RemoteFX
Improved end point security by denying certain disk writes via filters
Enterprise-grade management support through System Center

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Microsoft to buy Nokia

Rahul — Mon, 23 May 2011 15:53:02 +0000

According to the rumors spreading all around the web is that Microsoft is looking forward to aquire Mobile division of Nokia. Yes Nokia, Just three months before Microsoft had announced the partnership with Nokia and now they are about to aquire the whole devision. Then whats the main deal to announce the partnership. Just a week before Microsoft aquired skype for $8.5 bn. Is Microsoft is plaaning to aquire the entire web or they are having something supersonic plan with having Skype and Nokia. Whatever it is but sounds feels like they are about to going great.

The source of these reports is Russian blogger Eldar Murtazin. Murtazin focuses mostly on phones and has a pretty decent track record. Though he doesn’t know the finer details, Murtazin claims both parties are in a hurry and that the deal could close before the end of this year. And speaking of time-specific predictions, Murtazin has also said that Elop would resign from Nokia at the end of next year. via : Brothersoft

Hybrid deployment of Office 365 messaging – the future over the cloud

Rahul — Mon, 16 May 2011 08:38:40 +0000

Microsoft is moving to a hybrid deployment of Microsoft Office 365 where MSIT (Microsoft IT) hosts some user mailboxes on-premises service and hosts other mailboxes online in the cloud. This “dogfood” deployment of Microsoft Office 365 may possibly lead to lots of productivity possibility like faster and ease of access of mailbox. In this case study, they talk about the planning and preparation that’s needed to transfer mailboxes to the cloud. The mailboxes resides on-premises will be handles by Microsoft Exchange and the cloud based mailboxes will be operated by Office 365. Microsoft IT determined the following key workstreams,

Upgrading Line of Business applications (eg CRM systems) to Exchange Server 2010
Enhancing ADFS capabilities and support
Managing dependencies on Lync Server 2010
Creating a new cross-premises support model
Evaluating network readiness

As MSIT moves mailboxes to the cloud, users have seamless interoperability with Microsoft’s many existing mail-enabled applications. Users have the same rich mail experience whether their mailboxes are located on-premises or in the cloud. You can read the full case study from the internal IT team here : Technet Documentation

Price increment for Microsoft Certifications

Rahul — Sat, 14 May 2011 20:53:40 +0000

If you are planning to do Microsoft Certification in comming month, study faster and schedule for it before 1st July. Microsoft is about to do some significant changes in price of Certification exams effectively from 1t July onwards. Although the discounts available for the certification will be remain same. IT Academy members, high school, college, or university students enrolled in a degree or diploma program will continue to receive a discount off the retail price of select Microsoft Certification exams. Microsoft will be offering a 50 percent discount on Microsoft Certification exams to all MCTs worldwide. This discount will replace the current MCT discount structure. Exam prices can vary by country or region, to see your current and future Microsoft Certification exam prices – visit here For more information about this change, visit the FAQ page.

Skype is now “Microsoft Skype”

Rahul — Tue, 10 May 2011 13:13:39 +0000

Today Microsoft and Skype announced the collaborative agreement under which the big software giant Microsoft will be acquiring the leading Internet communications company Skype, for $8.5 billion cash. Now on Skype will be helping to increase the accessibility of real-time video and voice communications via Microsoft technology like Microsoft Communications, Outlook, Messenger, Hotmail and Xbox LIVE. Skype will support Microsoft devices like Xbox and Kinect, Windows Phone and a wide array of Windows devices, and Microsoft will connect Skype users with Lync, Outlook, Xbox Live and other communities. Microsoft will continue to invest in and support Skype clients on non-Microsoft platforms. According to Ballmer, Skype will become a new business division within Microsoft, and Skype CEO Tony Bates will be the president of the Microsoft Skype Division. There are some points is to cleared about this collaboration. What planning they will be doing for existing customers of Skype? Will they migrate all users to Windows Live ? Are they going to include it in Windows Phone ? Whatever it be but its sure that they both will be taking the Global real-time communications to the next level.

Nokia partnerships with Microsoft

Rahul — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 15:45:35 +0000

This news has been buzzing for several days that Nokia to adopt windows Phone 7 as their mobile operating system and today Nokia President and CEO Stephen Elop and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, announce a new partnership to build a new global mobile ecosystem. Elop has been considering the major possibilities for its smartphone business including plan to develop a mobile version of Linux, MeeGo, accepting Android or adopting Redmond’s Windows Phone 7. As for Android and Windows Phone, Elop said Nokia could offer a significant boost to either ecosystem.

“Android is growing very nicely; it has significant market share,” he said. “The combination of Android’s existing market share plus the market share that Nokia could bring to the Android ecosystem is a very large number and would signal a very substantial shift in the dynamics of the mobile operating system market.”

“Windows Phone is in its early formative stages in terms of getting customer traction and so forth. It’s a beautiful product and I say that as someone who is competing with it.”

This could be beneficial for both the end indeed Microsoft needs to expand their WinMo ecosystem to compete with Android and iOS.

There is few such points which has to be considered as a major part of this partnership, that is, Internet Explorer or Ovi browser? Ovi maps or Bing Maps? and Ovi store or Windows Marketplace? The answer is “Nokia’s content and application store would be integrated with Microsoft Marketplace for a more compelling consumer experience.” There’s a better chance of Windows Marketplace growth due to integration of Ovi store or may be we could be getting thousands of more application for Windows Phone as well. Till now, great move Microsoft and Nokia.

Rumors stated bing copies Google search results – Microsoft clarified it.

Rahul — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 20:24:27 +0000

Microsoft has been charged by a rumor driven by searchengineland.com and followed by the Google’s sting operation over Bing Search. Google has been engaged in proving Bing as a copy cat plumcake. According to them the Bing Toolbar is used to watch what users search for on Google, the sites that the users end up clicking on after the search is complete, and then use that data to improve their own search results. SearchEngineLand has details of how Google created a “Bing Sting” operation.

image courtesy : searchengineland.com

Is it seems like this? or Google is just overreacting. Here’s the original response Microsoft:

“We use multiple signals and approaches in ranking search results. The overarching goal is to do a better job determining the intent of the search so we can provide the most relevant answer to a given query. Opt-in programs like the toolbar help us with clickstream data, one of many input signals we and other search engines use to help rank sites,” said Stefan Weitz, Director, Bing.

Microsoft has posted its explanation of how it uses more than 1,000 different “signals” to create its search algorithm. An excerpt of a blog post from Harry Shum, Bing Corporate Vice President:

“To be clear, we learn from all of our customers. What we saw in today’s story was a spy-novelesque stunt to generate extreme outliers in tail query ranking. It was a creative tactic by a competitor, and we’ll take it as a back-handed compliment. But it doesn’t accurately portray how we use opt-in customer data as one of many inputs to help improve our user experience.”

Microsoft didn’t gave any detailed explanation or maybe they will be disclosing the detailed response over today’s Bing Event. Stay tuned

Bill Gates supports the things that Steve Ballmer is doing

Rahul — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 09:48:11 +0000

Microsoft Corp.co-founder Bill Gates said he supports chief executive officer Steve Ballmer, as rival Apple Inc. overtook Microsoft last month to become the technology company with the highest market capitalization.

“I happen to like the things that Steve’s doing,” Gates said when asked if he had confidence in Ballmer, according to the transcript of an interview for broadcast later on Sunday on ABC’s This Week programme. “It’s not my full-time work, but as a board member, you know, I see a lot of great things going on.”

Apple became the most valuable technology firm in the world on 26 May. Cupertino, California-based Apple’s market capitalization was $230.70 billion (Rs10.8 trillion) as of 11 June; Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft’s was $224.90 billion.

Asked why Apple overtook Microsoft, Gates said: “Oh, Microsoft is doing a lot of great stuff,” and that the opportunities in the software industry are pretty phenomenal.

“The way that people think about TV, the way they think about reading, about learning, software is going to revolutionize that,” said Gates.

Asked about the economy Gates said the President can’t just pull the levers and make the economy take off. He said reducing the US budget deficit will be difficult. “It’s a tricky thing, because almost everybody agrees we need to keep spending up, you know, not take all country deficits to zero right away. But over time, you have to move in that direction,” he said.

Gates also repeated his call for the US government to increase spending on clean-energy research and development. “Without such research, the problem we’ll run into is that we’ll have more crises like the oil spill and we’ll have the supply disruption. We’ll start to see more and more effects of the climate problem. The costs will go up because you’re looking for oil in harder and harder places,“ Gates said

Courtesy Livemint(Joshua Zumbrun) June14

Public Beta version of Windows 7 Service Pack 1 availability announced

Rahul — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 06:04:45 +0000

Now no more wait, Microsoft has announced the imminent availability of public beta version of Service pack 1 for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 at TechEd 2010 annual conference held in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA (June 7-10 2010).

” Today, at TechEd, we are pleased to announce that by the end of July we will be releasing the public beta of Service Pack 1 for Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7. ” - Microsoft Corporation

According to them expectation seems that we will be having SP1 Public Beta in the next one or two weeks.

Current assembly build tag for Windows 7/ Server 2008 R2 SP1 as follows : 6.1.7601.16562.win7sp1_beta.100603-1800 – actual build in win7sp1_beta branch 6.1.7601.16561.win7sp1_beta.100527-1447 – previous build 6.1.7601.16560.win7sp1_beta.100524-1800 – previous build 6.1.7601.16559.win7sp1_beta.100506-1349 – previous build